Silhouette
by The Absconding One
Summary: Dark Link contemplates his recent defeat at the hands of the Hero of Time.


**A/N:** Honestly, I just don't know anymore with my fics. I *think* that this one comes from the same universe as Shattered Mirror, but I'm not really sure. I'm told it's easier to understand than Just Breathe and Shattered Mirror, which is good...

**Disclaimer:** When I was six, I asked the Easter Bunny for a pony. I never got one. Last Christmas, I asked Santa for Link and Dark Link. I'm still waiting...

**Silhouette**  
By Megumi, The Absconding One

  
Click. Click. Click. Swish.

Turn.

Click. Click. Click. Swish.  
  
Turn.

Thunder, rattling what's left of the windowpanes. The tattered curtains flap aimlessly in the howling wind. The shadow paced, unperturbed.

Click. Worn out boots on the stone floor. Back and forth, back and forth. The shadow didn't understand.

Click. He had failed.

Click. The shadow _never_ failed.

A pause, as the shadow stood silhouetted in the fading, fierce twilight. Swish, as his threadbare cloak was drawn closer to his body. It was cold here, in the fortress of the king.

Click.

How had this boy, this unexperienced child, defeated him?

The shadow paused again, crimson eyes gazing out into the storm. How had he, the shadow, the kings best swordsman, been defeated? And why did it disturb him so?

In the silence that can only come in the midst of a maelstrom, his eyes flicked to the forest. The phantom had fallen.

West, to the mountain. The dragon had fallen.

To the lake. The waters themselves had failed their master, the king of evil. All had fallen when faced with the Hero. All had been punished for their failure.

Click. Click. Click.

The rage in the child's eyes... It unnerved him. Tamed, that fury could batter down the highest mountain or drain the deepest sea. Untamed, Ganondorf himself would surely fall, Power or no.

Untamed, that fury could destroy everything.

_"You want to play, Shadow? Then let's play."_

And the Hylians had branded the shadow a monster? This was their hero, and he was mad, wicked and cruel. Not the knight in shining armor that the ranch girl dreamt of, that was for sure.

Click. Click. Click.

"Thinking about the kid again?"

He turned to face the newcomer, without a smile. She greeted him with the same cold stare, though her lips were twisted in a cruel smirk.

"What business is it of yours, Nabooru?" He asked, acidly. The last thing that he needed was for the Gerudo woman to see his weakness, his confusion.

"I make it my business to know when the master's favorite flunkie is defeated by a child." She was without armor or weapon, but her words were cruel enough. The witches had done their work on her, but her fierce Gerudo personality remained and loved nothing more then mocking the shadow.

Shadow smiled grimly. A touch from the Master Sword would soon take the the smirk from her face.

"I wouldn't be smiling I was you, Shadow. The king is rather cross with you, and you know what happens to the minions he doesn't like." She crossed the room to stand beside him at the window. "A storm," she mused. "How fitting."

"I won't be sent to the void, thief."  
  
"Don't be so sure of that." There was silence in the room. Then the thunder cracked again, and she turned to him with a level glare. "We'll all perish, eventually."

Shadow shook his head, turning to the window. "He won't succeed, you know that. He's just a boy."

Nabooru gave a mirthless laugh. "Just a boy? Don't be a fool, Shadow. That boy cut through an Iron Knuckle with a forest blade and a ten year-old body. Now he's got the Master Sword, and fire and rage in his eyes..."

"He'll be defeated, thief. He'll be defeated, and then the world will truly belong to the king." Lightning flashed through the room, and the drums of thunder covered his next, whispered words. "He _will_ fall..."

"Are you afraid, Shadow?"

He whipped around to face her, crimson eyes filled with spite and the desire to sever her smirking head from her body. "Never!" He hissed.

She met his glare with one of her own. The thunder and the rain and the lightning rose in terrific symphony. Nabooru did not smile. "You should be."

"Do you fear him?" Countered Shadow, angrily.

"Yes."

He hadn't expected that. Warily, he resumed his pacing.

Click. Click. Click.

"You think that you are powerful, Shadow?"

Pause. He could feel her eyes on his back. She continued, "You're wrong. When the sages have all been awakened and he comes to the castle, your most powerful attack will be but a shadow of his strength."

Another cruel, twisted smirk. "And that's all you are, isn't it? The shadow of the Hero of Time."

In their gauntlets, his fist clenched. "Thief-"

"Everyone knows that you aren't really from the desert as you say. You were found wandering around Castletown seven years ago; near the Temple of Time, wasn't it?"

"Shut up, thief." He said, trying to keep the rage from his voice.

"How does it feel, Shadow, to know that you'll never be whole so long as the Hero is around?" She laughed. "The Sacred Realm obviously didn't want an evil thing like you. Not when it could have a perfect, untainted child-soul to twist to it's will."

"_Shut up_, thief." She turned from the window and walked towards him. The storm still raged, but her words muted any sound from the outside world. She leaned in close to his face, her breath hot on his face, and whispered,

"How does it feel, Shadow, to know that the only person who could ever defeat you _is you_?"

There was the hiss of unsheathed steel, and Nabooru found herself against the wall with Shadow's sword pointed at her throat. He looked down at her and saw that there was fear behind her eyes.

"Never say that," he said, each word cutting through the air like a shard of broken glass. "He is not me, thief, and I am not him, and there _will_ be blood the next time you say such things."

He released her, and she backed away, rubbing her throat with a manicured, battle calloused hand. She held his gaze until she reached the doorway, when she turned.

Click. Click. Click.

"You're right," said Nabooru from where she stood in the doorway. She did not turn to look at him. "There will be blood the next time someone speaks the truth around here. But it will be yours, and it will be the Hero who shed it."

Click. Click. Click.

Turn.

She was gone.

Click. She was always good for riling him up, that Nabooru.   
  
Click. The king had given him a chance. He wouldn't fail this time. He wouldn't allow that smirking Gerudo another opportunity to pour salt in his wounds.

Click. The fire in that boy's eyes... It was the fire of one gone mad. He knew it well, he had seen it often enough in the mirror. But where the shadow's lunacy was the madness of one too long in the dark, the hero's madness was that of one without shelter from the terrible, all consuming light.

Two opposites, the shadow and the hero. Two halves of a whole? Perhaps. The shadow's origins were unclear, he could well have been a part of that boy, once.

A pause. Then, click.

Once.

Not now. The shadow smiled a cruel smile. In his madness, the hero would fall. It was the least that Shadow could do to help him on his way.

  
_~owari~_


End file.
